Reciprocity emerges early in development, yet its bidirectional dynamics within parent-child dyads remain underexplored. Here, we examined how children's presence and gender shape parents' reciprocal behavior toward third parties, and in turn, how parental modeling shapes their 4-year olds' reciprocal responses toward others. In a two-phase experiment, 179 Israeli parents (Mage = 38, SD = 5.6) interacted with an adult partner who behaved either cooperatively or selfishly, and in the presence or absence of their child (son or daughter). Subsequently, 174 children (Mage = 4.58, SD = 0.78) responded to a peer partner's similar actions. Parents reciprocated cooperation at high rates regardless of their child's presence or gender (87%), but reciprocated selfishness more with sons present (72%) than with daughters (45%). In turn, children reciprocated selfishness at high rates regardless of their parent's behavior (92%), but aligned with their parent's behavior when interacting with cooperative partners. Together, the findings highlight the context and gender specificity of reciprocity among parents and children: Parents retaliate in kind more when accompanied by sons, whereas children align with their parents only when facing cooperative partners. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Avi Benozio (Mon,) studied this question.